Industrial and commercial frying operations, such as the manufacture of potato chips, use large quantities of oil. During any frying operation, portions of the fried material may flake off, such as skin from potatoes. These flakes are carbon particles. Some of these particles stick to the food being cooked and cause a blemish thereon. Other particles remain suspended in the oil and must be removed before the oil can be recycled for further use.
In typical commercial and industrial frying operations, the used oil containing the suspended solids is sent to a centrifuge separator, such as that manufactured by Lakos, which concentrates the solids into a liquid sludge-type medium. Clean oil from the separator can be returned to the fryer for reuse. The sludge is sent to a filter vessel which has to be manually opened and cleaned, thereby exposing the operator to hot oil at a temperature of approximately 360.degree. F. Thus, the manual replacement of the filter element of the filter vessel presents risks of burn, as well as exposing the environment to the oily, dirty sludge. Also, the operator cannot tell when the filter element in the filter vessel is full. Therefore, cleaning of the filter element may occur too early or too late, rather than at the optimal time just as the filter element becomes full. Also, since the sludge is not compacted in the filter vessel, the volume of sludge requires the element to be changed more frequently than would be necessary with compacted sludge. Furthermore, oil in the sludge is not recovered and therefore wasted.
Therefore, a primary objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and means for screening solids from a liquid medium so that cleaned liquid may be recycled for further use.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of a device for removing suspended solids from oil and other sludge-type liquid mediums.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of a device wherein the waste solids are discharged from the device automatically and without manual handling.
Still a further objective of the present invention is the provision of a method and means for filtering oil having suspended solids therein, so as to recover recyclable oil therefrom, and for compressing the removed solids before being discharged.
Another objective of the present invention is the provision of a safe and efficient method and means of removing suspended solids from a liquid.
These and other objectives will become apparent from the following description of the invention.